SSB expedition all set to climb Mount Everest

Kathmandu: A mountaineering expedition by a team of Sashastra Seema Bal personnel will attempt to scale Mount Everest, coinciding with the diamond jubilee of the first ascent of the world`s highest peak.

A flag-off ceremony was held on Friday to see off the Everest Expedition team of the SSB which flew to the Everest region yesterday to start final preparations for climbing Everest in May.

At the event, team leader Commandant Somit Joshi said that they were climbing Everest to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the paramilitary force, also coinciding with the diamond jubilee of the first successful climb on the 8848-metre-high peak by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay on May 29, 1953.

Climbing under the concept of Everest Climb, Clean and Run (ECCR), they would be bringing their own garbage on return from the summit and running the highest marathon in the world, the Tenzing Hillary Everest Marathon, on May 29.

"We don`t want to pollute Everest, so we will be bringing all the garbage back to Namche for disposal as a social responsibility as global citizens," he said.

"We have to wipe off the image of Everest as the highest garbage dumping site in the world in this ecologically manageable manner," said a Nepalese official.